


Fianait Alphabet

by LadyGoat



Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: F/M, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-29
Updated: 2013-10-31
Packaged: 2017-12-30 21:36:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1023645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyGoat/pseuds/LadyGoat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alphabet set exploring Fianait Mahariel, female Dalish Elf.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A is for Alone

Fianait has never been without her clan before. Certainly there were hunting trips that took her outside the camp, but there were always other hunters, and especially there was always Tamlen. And now she’s walking some decrepit ancient highway with a human. He doesn’t look right, always looming over her, hairy and huge and hulking and dark, nothing like her own quick people with their blonde hair and light eyes and lithe bodies. He doesn’t sound right, clanking along in plate armor and doubtless scaring off everything but darkspawn. She hasn’t seen so much as a single rabbit since they started walking. He doesn’t even smell right, he smells of metal and human sweat and human food.

They don’t talk much. The Grey Warden -- Duncan, his name is -- doesn’t seem inclined to idle chat, even if she were. Fianait is too sunk in grief to want to talk about the weather or the trees or who built the road or whatever it is humans talk about when traveling with strangers. The Keeper has sent her away, has told her she can never come back. She feels like a criminal, clanless and cast out.

The first night on the road, she lies on her back, wrapped in the blanket she brought from the clan that still smells and feels like home, staring up at the stars. Everything she knows and loves is gone, taken from her, and the cold glittering lights in the sky don’t make her feel any better. Back home, Sabrae clan will be gathered around the storyteller’s fire, listening to Hahren Paivel, sharing dinner and companionship. Here and now, she’s never felt so alone.

Fianait tells herself it’s just the cold sting of autumn air making her eyes water and run down her temples.


	2. B is for Belief

The Chantry is everywhere in the army camp, the priests leading impromptu services for groups of soldiers no matter where she looks. The sound of prayers and hymns to Andraste and the Maker niggles at her ears at every turn as she moves through the tents, searching out two other recruits and one Grey Warden based on Duncan's loose descriptions. The hum of religious faith grates her nerves raw, she's been raised on the story of the Fall of the Dales. The Chantry destroyed their homeland when the Elvhen refused to worship Andraste and the Maker, never mind that the conversion of one of their own had won them the homeland from Andraste's own hand. Never mind that they'd been harming no shemlen, keeping to themselves and trying to rebuild the world that the Tevinter Imperium had shattered centuries before. Hahren Paivel, normally the most gentle and optimistic of men, had told her not to trust the Chantry and its people before she set out, but she'd hardly needed the warning. She knew the stories as well as any of them.

Fianait can't help a moment of shock the first time she sees a circle of elves in front of one of the priests. Their faces are all naked and unadorned, making them look like children or like humans, and they kneel and speak the responses as if the Maker's people hadn't been responsible for their second enslavement. Or maybe their parents never made the Long Walk, and these are the children of the children of the children who never wanted to be free if it meant hard work. Her lip twitches, almost curling in disgust, but she smooths her face with effort. At least the other elves look right, and better not to start a fight in an army camp where the only other elves she's seen have been harried servants, moving like they're afraid of their own shadows. Their cringing postures and Andrastian worship shy her back like a blow, and she feels more alone than she did on the road with Duncan.

As if the priests and lay brethren aren't bad enough, templars are everywhere, too, faceless in their steel helmets, every one of them a reminder of why her people now spend their lives in wagons, welcome nowhere. How were the Elvhen to stand against these huge shemlen in their metal shells? Fianait shivers every time she passes one, feeling eyes behind shadowed slits on the back of her neck. She sends a brief prayer to Mythal to shield her from their anger, another to Andruil to help her in her hunt for the strangers Duncan has sent her to collect, and keeps searching.


	3. C is for Companions

The hallway stretched ahead, about ten feet wide, bare stone, with a left turn at the end concealing gods only knew what. Fianait scanned it carefully, only vaguely hearing a soft clank behind her as either Alistair or Sten shifted. There. A thin wire stretched across the hall, just where the shadows fell away from two torches mounted on the walls. Kneeling, she got to work, and had just snipped the wire, holding it carefully taut to keep from triggering it, when the sound of running footsteps from ahead of her made her swear. No time to look up and see what was coming if she didn't want to find out what this wire triggered.

The first crossbow bolt whistled past her on the left, its feathers zinging her leather helm. She needed to move that way, the trigger was hidden in a nook in the wall she could see now, but there was no way the next bolt was going to--there was a thunk as it slammed into a shield that had whipped into place in front of her, Alistair standing beside her now to give her cover. She started moving left and he moved with her, trying to stay out of her way and at the same time keep the shield in place. She didn't look up. She had to trust him and had to keep her eyes on what she was doing, but her skin crawled with her helplessness and her brain raced with calculations: was it worth chancing whatever this trap was to get away?

Heavy footsteps on her right, front and back, and she tried not to flinch away from the loud noise of Sten's sword intercepting a blade aimed at her side. He could have moved forward, that side of the wire was down, but it would have risked the hurlocks getting around him and flanking her. He stayed put, just far enough from her to avoid nailing her himself as she finally made it to the wall, Alistair stepping forward and over her and the wire both. The two of them formed a wall around her, and realizing that nothing would get through she finally relaxed enough to wiggle her fingers into the crack in the wall and disarm the trigger mechanism by feel.

With a great lift of relief she rolled backwards and onto her feet, sliding her swords from her back and slipping around behind a genlock about to make a try for Sten's knees. She slid one sword into the nape of its neck and looked for the next opponent, but it was finished, Alistair sliding his blade into a hurlock brainpan. He looked up at her, standing beside Sten, and smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkling. 

"I think we work well together," he said.

Afterward, in camp, Fianait realized she hadn't felt that safe in a long time.


End file.
